In order for Mapsimise to display a data record as a marker on a map, that record must have a latitude and longitude value. A data record that has both a latitude and a longitude is considered to be geocoded.
If you import or connect data to Mapsimise that is already geocoded (known as pre-geocoded data), Mapsimise can use the latitude and longitude values provided to display records on maps without doing any further work.
However, most data is not geocoded and so to display records from a non-geocoded dataset on a map, it must go through the process of geocoding.
Geocoding is the process of taking one or more pieces of address information and converting that information to a latitude and longitude. Address information generally comes in the form of one to three street fields, a city/town field, a state/county/province field, a country field, and a postal code field. Generally speaking, the more address information provided, the more accurate the geocode will be.
Mapsimise uses a geocoding service called OpenCage. The main reason for using OpenCage is that their terms allow the storing of geocode results returned from their service against your data, no matter where it is stored. That allows Mapsimise to geocode the data you upload, as well as data that you connect to using a Mapsimise live connector and store the resulting latitude/longitude values in your database indefinitely.
